Rebels, religious, political strife plague Indonesia

Published: Thursday, August 12, 1999

JAKARTA, Indonesia {AP} A little more than two months after Indonesia held a historic but inconclusive democratic election, a new wave of violence and uncertainty has swept the sprawling Southeast Asian nation.

Scores have been killed during weeks of mayhem.

A frustrated military has launched a new and bloody offensive to crush a growing Islamic rebellion in the oil-rich western province of Aceh.

Thousands of miles away, Muslims and Christian mobs fight pitched street battles in eastern Maluku region, once known as the Spice Islands.

Separatist sentiment simmers in Irian Jaya in western New Guinea. And violence-wracked East Timor could well break away from Indonesia altogether after the United Nations stages a referendum on its future on Aug. 30.

Consisting of 17,000 Islands

SUBHEAD:'Social disintegration' threatens nation

and hundreds of ethnic groups, some fear that the world's fourth-most populous country, struggling with its worst economic crisis in a generation, might not be able to hold itself together much longer.

"What we see now is social disintegration," Tommy Legowo, an analyst at the Center for Strategic International Studies, a Jakarta think tank, said Wednesday. "But social disintegration is only the start of territorial disintegration."

For decades, then-President Suharto used an iron fist to control social, religious and political tensions while running roughshod over the gripes of regions beyond the main island of Java.

"There are many grievances in many of the outlying areas because they feel the center has not paid enough attention to their interests," said outgoing U.S. Ambassador Stapleton Roy.

Last year riots and protests forced Suharto from power after 32 years.

A new law has been passed to give disgruntled provinces more political power and greater control over their resources. But hopes that this and other democratic reforms would result in a new era of peace appear to have foundered.

On June 7, more than 105 million voters cast ballots in the most open parliamentary election held in Indonesia for 44 years.

After weeks of bungled and delayed vote-counting, no single party emerged with a clear majority in the legislature, leaving open the question of who will be selected president by a special assembly in November.

Of more immediate concern, though, is the army's response to the escalating unrest.

Military head Gen. Wiranto, another former Suharto loyalist, has promised to clean up the army's poor human rights record.

Former President Carter on Wednesday accused the armed forces, which invaded East Timor in 1975, of undermining the referendum in the former Portuguese colony.

Carter said troops have armed and supported anti-independence militiamen, who are accused of killing civilians and attacking U.N. staff supervising the vote.